Chocolate to your H for his birthday (from gushy woman) - would you feel jealous?

[textingdisaster]

Just wanted your thoughts on this. H is doing a lot of work on a woman's house. She lives just up the road and he has known her for about 9 years (during which time he has done various jobs for her).

Thursday was his birthday. She must have found out on Friday because I found a big happy belated birthday slab of chocolate in the car (happy birthday written on it in a different colour chocolate) with an attached note saying Happy Belated Birthday h's name and a smiley face drawn next to it. This in combination with the fact that she picked something up from the chemist for him recently and that she is generally very gushy and syrupy sweetly nice, is annoying me. Maybe however IABU and she is just being nice to a friend?

Sister's partner thinks that the fact that she went to all this trouble the day after his birthday, means something.

Maybe I am being petty but please be gentle as H and I have a difficult relationship which is making things like this possibly seem worse at the moment (especially the fact that he is not talking to me at the moment).

Has no one else noticed the name on the chocolate?? She didn't just buy a bar of chocolate in the shop like a normal person would do, she arranged for a special personalised chocolate bar with his name on it. Too much effort for no good reason for me.

It wasn't personalised runes, sorry if I didn't make that clear. The bar had Happy Birthday written on and the attached note had his name on it.

Thanks for your post book. My counsellor also told me that I mainly spoke about h. The trouble is that I don't seem to have moved beyond that phase as my Aunt's partner is always telling me the same thing as well. That it's about me being happy and what I want.

I texted h today saying that we both need care and affection but don't seem to be able to give it to each other and that I don't know how to make him happy. That he either seems to be cross or not speaking and how anxious it makes me. I said that we could either separate or try and be more caring / affectionate / communicative. That that would mean letting go of grudges etc....

I don't know how much the latter will be possible but I am hoping to buy some time during which I can do what I need to finding work wise and also try to become someone who doesn't need the approval of others. I really need to "move on". I'd rather we did that together. I am waiting to see if h stops ostracising me in response to the text and take it from there. To be honest I don't think we have it in us to be a loving team . Also h is filled with what seems to be insurmountable amounts of resentment. He also does not really have it in him to compromise on some of the things which are important to me. Not that I am perfect. I too find not being a team financially (let's say) easier than having to discuss everything (for example) as I think it would lead to lots of arguments and more resentment. I would like to be a team
but not if it means that he holds a lot of the strings as he does now. And I really don't think he wants to share the strings. He has employed people for years and I don't think he can easily conceive of a more equal relationship.

I am going to take baby steps book. Thanks for your kind messages.

Sorry, my fault, I misread your op . Seems like the chocolate isn't really the problem I hope you manage to work things out.